Last night was the deadline for submissions for the 2016 Tomie dePaola Award.
The challenge was to create an 8" X 8" image (with no space for text) based on a prompt from Phillip Pullman's "Little Red Riding Hood" from Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm (Viking, 2012). There were three basic scenes to chose from, but I definitely wanted to choose the part with the wolf.
When Little Red Riding Hood had only been walking a few minutes, a wolf came up to her. She didn’t know what a wicked animal he was, so she wasn’t afraid of him.
Tomie dePaola also stipulated:
One of the biggest and most important challenges the Children’s Book Illustrator faces, over and over again, is the UNIQUE VISUALIZATION of the MAIN CHARACTER.
So often, I have seen illustrators resort to generic depictions of the star of the story–too “designed,” too ordinary, too much like characters already seen in media, especially on TV and video games.
Your task is to make me “FALL IN LOVE” with your illustration and especially with Red Riding Hood. I want to “meet her” for the first time.
And for your interest, here is my original drawing before painting.
